Crimes and Punishments.

The immediate neighbors of the McAffees were loyalists, and the nearest Whigs were about two miles distant, hence it was between eight and nine o'clock before any assistance was had to prevent a rescue. Capt. McAffee then, exhausted by the struggle and the excitement which he had been under, repaired to an adjoining apartment to rest himself. Sometime after he had retired it was discovered that Fitzpatrick, whose body was covered by the quilt, had freed his arm from the rope, and it was suspected that the young woman had been mainly instrumental in loosing the bonds. He was speedily rebound, and the rope was drawn so tightly that he complained that it hurt him. No attention was paid by the men present to the remonstrance of the prisoner, and he appealed to Miss Jane McAffee, who called her brother. The latter declared that Fitzpatrick should not be ill used, and although be must be bound, the ropes should not be drawn unnecessarily tight to cause him pain. About eleven o'clock one of the men who were guarding Fitzpatrick sat near the window, when he was immediately fired at, the ball lodging in the weatherboarding of the house beneath the sill. A number of the men present made search for the assailant, whom they believed to have been Dougherty, but failed to apprehend him. They merely found a sword, which was recognized as one that Fitzpatrick had taken from a patriot officer. Two hours after midnight the guard dispatched from the American camp to escort Fitzpatrick to a place of safe detention arrived, and taking him in charge, conveyed him to Old Chester, where he was lodged in jail early the following morning. Dougherty, after the capture of his superior, passed entirely out of public notice, and nothing is known of his subsequent career. He may have taken part in the series of annoyances to which Capt. McAffee and family were subjected after the capture of Fitzpatrick. Two stacks of oats were burned, the spring-house opened, all the milk-pans therein ruined, and the manes and tails of the horses on their farm cut off, and other outrages perpetrated.

On the 15th of September Fitzpatrick was tried and convicted of burglary and robbery, and sentenced to be hanged. The Executive Council of the State approved the sentence, and designated the 26th day of the same month as the time when the execution should take place. While confined in the old jail in Chester, after conviction, Fitzpatrick made an effort to escape. He filed his chains and would have succeeded in his attempt had it not been that iron bars, imbedded in the masonry of the flue of the chimney, prevented his egress in that way, and the noise made in striving to break them out aroused his keepers. He was, therefore, removed by order of Council to the then recently-erected prison on Walnut Street, Philadelphia, as a place of greater security. There he twice broke his handcuffs off in one night, but was prevented from effecting his escape by the vigilance of the guards. The day previous to his execution he was conveyed to Chester.

On the morning of the 26th day of September, 1778, at the intersection of Providence and Edgmont Avenues, in North Ward, Chester, James Fitzpatrick met his fate. Tradition hath it that after the rope was adjusted about his neck and the cart drawn from beneath the gallows he fell to the earth on his feet, and that by standing on his toes the strain on his neck was removed. This the hangman saw, and springing upon the shoulders of the doomed man, the increased weight forced the body down until James Fitzpatrick was actually strangled to death.

Joseph Bates, who had been convicted of burglary, was ordered by the Executive Council to be hung May 20, 1780, at two o'clock P.M., "at the usual place of execution¹ in Chester."

In May, 1780, William Boyd, a collector of the public taxes in Chester County, while in the discharge of his duties, was murdered by John and Robert Smith, who, after the commission of the act, fled. President Joseph Reed, with the approval of the Executive Council, offered a reward of twenty thousand dollars for the arrest of the murderers. They were making their way across New Jersey to join the British army, in New York, when they were apprehended by Sheriff Furman, of Monmouth County. They were brought to Chester, where, June 26, 1780, they were tried, convicted, and ordered to be hung, at the usual place of execution, on Saturday, July 1st, four full days alone intervening between their condemnation and death.

On Oct. 26, 1784, the Executive Council directed a warrant to the sheriff of Chester County requiring the execution of Joseph Clark, John McDonnell, and John Varnum, alias Benson, who were then under sentence of death for burglary, on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1784.

Elizabeth Wilson. - The unhappy life-history of Elizabeth Wilson is one of the most popular traditions of Delaware and Chester Counties, and for nearly a century has been told and retold by the old residents of Delaware and Chester Counties and by their descendants, until many of the details, as so related, have gathered about the true narrative much that is unreliable if not absolutely false. Although I have striven to substantiate every item by careful investigation, perchance some of the imaginary particulars which have clustered around the sad, true history of Elizabeth Wilson may yet cling to the story in the present narration.

Elizabeth Wilson was the daughter of a farmer residing in East Bradford township, Chester Co., who in the conflict of political opinions preceding and during the Revolutionary war was earnest and honest in the advocacy of the crown. His means